“Baby chicken” and crazy coincidences

So, in my last post, I mentioned my colleague and friend, Toni, who was due to deliver 9 days before me. She lives about an hour north of us, so the odds of my running into her randomly are slim to nil. At the spur of the moment around 3pm yesterday, Adam and I decided to drive 45 minutes north to Burlington and buy ourselves some magazines (from B&N) and treats (from my favorite gourmet market). At 5pm, we decided that perhaps we should have dinner up there and made reservations at Sonoma Station, a restaurant we’d never been to before but that had gotten really good reviews. A few minutes after we arrived for our 6pm reservation, who do we see walking towards the restaurant but Toni and her husband, Allen! Mind you, this place is a good 35 minutes from both of our houses and neither of us have ever been there before.

When I exclaim in wonder about their coming to the same restaurant, the waitress says to me “oh she must be the one ordering the ‘baby chicken.’” The what now? Apparently, they have this chicken dish that isn’t on the menu, but has supposedly made a number of women go into labor after eating it. I guess at 9 days overdue, Toni is ready to try anything to get that baby moving (though my mom went 9 days overdue with me and everything turned out just fine). So our wonderful meal ended up being even more wonderful with Toni and Allen sitting next to us. I just can’t get over the coincidence that we both chose to go to the same restaurant at the same time and that the restaurant I chose almost randomly has something called a “baby chicken.” What are the odds?!?!?

The meal was seriously delicious (the restaurant could hold its own anywhere in the country, including Sonoma), and while I didn’t have the “baby chicken,” we did make another reservation for Friday in case I haven’t delivered by then.